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Smart Folders (Finder -> File -> New Smart Folder). It's not exactly hidden but I never paid too much attention to it. It's essentially a way to create a folder

Smart Folders (Finder -> File -> New Smart Folder). It's not exactly hidden but I never paid too much attention to it. It's essentially a way to create a folder whose content is dynamically updated based on your search conditions. For example, you can create a smart folder that contains all PDF files matching a certain name pattern within a given directory (or the whole disk) [0]. You can get really advanced, there's a ton of different parameters you can use [1], and you can even create more complicated conditions by holding Option and clicking the plus sign (now changed to just three dots). And of course you can drag these folders into the sidebar's Favourites section. [0] https://i.imgur.com/lD2zaSd.png https://i.imgur.com/lD2zaSd.png [1] https://i.imgur.com/SKsQRnQ.png https://i.imgur.com/SKsQRnQ.png

jiripospisil 6y ago
Oh and I almost forgot - there's also a similar concept of Smart Playlists within iTunes (Command+Option+N) [0]. [0] https://i.imgur.com/eXmwb42.png https://i.imgur.com/eXmwb42.png
- hjnilsson 6y ago
  And in Photos. I use it to create albums for different cameras and lenses I’ve had / have, very useful!
  - iscrewyou 6y ago
    This is how I organize albums. You can create a smart album that “is not” in “Any”. Now this smart album has all the photos that are not in any album.
- samelawrence 6y ago
  As a DJ, I use Smart Playlist very heavily in iTunes. I genre tag all my music as it comes in, and then let the logic take over from there.
donatj 6y ago
I’ve been sad since they were introduced that they don’t work at the file system level, hence not in CLI applications. Support for them in desktop apps that open directories is also spotty. I would LOVE them if they were reimplemented as a fuse style file system instead of a userland macOS trick.
- egypturnash 6y ago
  I wonder if there is a list somewhere around Apple of "Annoying Edge Cases We'd Have To Support If Smart Folders Worked At The Filesystem Level", and how long it is. Like, you're in a smart folder that contains files whose name includes "foo", and you try to create a file whose name does not include "foo", what happens? Do you get an existing filesystem error? Do you get a new "can't create new files in smart folders" error? Interestingly enough I just discovered that if you drag a file into the Tags section of the Finder window's sidebar, it will remain where it is - but if you create a smart folder whose criteria is "tag:tagname" it won't let you drag anything into it, even though it shows the exact same set of files.
  - derefr 6y ago
    Presumably a "smart directory" would itself be read-only, as if mounted from an ROFS; but its contents would all be symbolic links, such that when you're opening the file, you're opening its readlink(2) target, so the fact that the source link was read-only doesn't matter to your ability to modify the file. This would pretty much match the expectations of how "Smart Folders" currently work in the Finder, and also how equivalents like "Smart Playlists" work in iTunes/Music.
  - DrJokepu 6y ago
    Also, duplicate filenames due to two files in two different locations both getting picked up by the smart folder.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - 6y ago
elg75 6y ago
+ tags, it is a really flexible and powerful way to organise your files (by project + status + …)
soylentgraham 6y ago
I exclusively used smart playlists for my ipod nano (for date reference :), I pray that one day these smart folders appear on win/osx as a low level. Like smart symbolic links. Surely it cant be that hard!
- bretthowell 6y ago
  It would seem such a thing vexed even Bill Gates himself “biggest regret”: https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-biggest-microsoft-product-regret-winfs/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-biggest-microsoft-p...
swyx 6y ago
is there a way to use this to rebuild the missing "All My Files" on Macs?
- jiripospisil 6y ago
  I think so. Just create a new Smart Folder, set the condition to something that matches all files, for example "Created is after 1970" and sort by "Date Created".
hinkley 6y ago
I wonder if that’s how they implemented smart playlists for iTunes.
- AprilArcus 6y ago
  Other way around. Smart playlists (iTunes 3; July 17, 2002) came long before smart folders (MacOS X 10.4 "Tiger"; April 29, 2005), and solve a simpler problem due to dealing with a single file type and a pre-existing existing centralized database of standardized and relatively homogeneous ID3 metadata. Spotlight was created to extensibly generalize these capabilities to the while filesystem.

jiripospisil 6y ago

Oh and I almost forgot - there's also a similar concept of Smart Playlists within iTunes (Command+Option+N) [0]. [0] https://i.imgur.com/eXmwb42.png https://i.imgur.com/eXmwb42.png

hjnilsson 6y ago
And in Photos. I use it to create albums for different cameras and lenses I’ve had / have, very useful!
- iscrewyou 6y ago
  This is how I organize albums. You can create a smart album that “is not” in “Any”. Now this smart album has all the photos that are not in any album.
samelawrence 6y ago
As a DJ, I use Smart Playlist very heavily in iTunes. I genre tag all my music as it comes in, and then let the logic take over from there.

donatj 6y ago

I’ve been sad since they were introduced that they don’t work at the file system level, hence not in CLI applications. Support for them in desktop apps that open directories is also spotty. I would LOVE them if they were reimplemented as a fuse style file system instead of a userland macOS trick.

egypturnash 6y ago
I wonder if there is a list somewhere around Apple of "Annoying Edge Cases We'd Have To Support If Smart Folders Worked At The Filesystem Level", and how long it is. Like, you're in a smart folder that contains files whose name includes "foo", and you try to create a file whose name does not include "foo", what happens? Do you get an existing filesystem error? Do you get a new "can't create new files in smart folders" error? Interestingly enough I just discovered that if you drag a file into the Tags section of the Finder window's sidebar, it will remain where it is - but if you create a smart folder whose criteria is "tag:tagname" it won't let you drag anything into it, even though it shows the exact same set of files.
- derefr 6y ago
  Presumably a "smart directory" would itself be read-only, as if mounted from an ROFS; but its contents would all be symbolic links, such that when you're opening the file, you're opening its readlink(2) target, so the fact that the source link was read-only doesn't matter to your ability to modify the file. This would pretty much match the expectations of how "Smart Folders" currently work in the Finder, and also how equivalents like "Smart Playlists" work in iTunes/Music.
- DrJokepu 6y ago
  Also, duplicate filenames due to two files in two different locations both getting picked up by the smart folder.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - 6y ago

elg75 6y ago

+ tags, it is a really flexible and powerful way to organise your files (by project + status + …)

soylentgraham 6y ago

I exclusively used smart playlists for my ipod nano (for date reference :), I pray that one day these smart folders appear on win/osx as a low level. Like smart symbolic links. Surely it cant be that hard!

bretthowell 6y ago
It would seem such a thing vexed even Bill Gates himself “biggest regret”: https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-biggest-microsoft-product-regret-winfs/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/bill-gates-biggest-microsoft-p...

swyx 6y ago

is there a way to use this to rebuild the missing "All My Files" on Macs?

jiripospisil 6y ago
I think so. Just create a new Smart Folder, set the condition to something that matches all files, for example "Created is after 1970" and sort by "Date Created".

hinkley 6y ago

I wonder if that’s how they implemented smart playlists for iTunes.

AprilArcus 6y ago
Other way around. Smart playlists (iTunes 3; July 17, 2002) came long before smart folders (MacOS X 10.4 "Tiger"; April 29, 2005), and solve a simpler problem due to dealing with a single file type and a pre-existing existing centralized database of standardized and relatively homogeneous ID3 metadata. Spotlight was created to extensibly generalize these capabilities to the while filesystem.